Local Authorities See War as Source of Oil Killing Fish
Story and image by Asia Democracy Chronicles.
by ZEESHAN NASIR
Zeeshan Nasir is a freelance writer based in Turbat in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, covering education, environment, and local development issues.
At Surbandar, a small coastal town just east of the port city of Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, fishers big and small are back at sea, enjoying catches that nearly match what they had been hauling before black muck disturbed the waters a few months ago.
But even Abdul Rahim Baloch, environment department deputy director at the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA), acknowledges that small boat owners in particular are still hurting from the economic loss they suffered from the disaster that struck Gwadar’s waters in June.
A marine scientist, Abdul Rahim said that the sea returned to normal after a nearly weeklong cleanup of the oil spill, the origins of which remain under investigation. But he and the local fishers are keeping a wary eye on the ongoing war in Iraq, where oil tankers have become targets of both Iran and U.S. forces.
When crude oil began washing onto Pakistan’s southwestern shores in June, eventually blackening a roughly 20-kilometer expanse of Gwadar’s coast, some authorities suspected the oil to be fallout from the U.S.-Iran war, spillage from a tanker hit in strikes. The entrance to the Strait of Hormuz sits about 400 kilometers west of Gwadar, easily within range on the back of westerly winds and eastward ocean currents.
Oceanographic studies have shown that pollutants in the oceans can move across national boundaries. Pinpointing the exact origin of an oil spill, however, normally requires vessel-tracking information, satellite images, and chemical fingerprinting of oil samples.
Abdul Rahim added that the risk nevertheless remains of Gwader’s coast getting coated in oil again, given the intensified crisis around the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on the vessels in the region. He also pointed out that Chabahar port in Southern Iran, which is 170 kilometers west of Gwadar, has also been hit in recent escalations.
“The war is near Gwadar,” Abdul Rahim said flatly.
The recent spill’s close proximity to the shore had made it particularly perilous to the fragile ecosystem of the coast of Makran, of which Gwadar is part. It was a crushing blow as well to Gwadar itself, where 70 percent of the community rely on small-scale fishing amid bruising poverty.
“When the customers hear about oil in the sea, they stop purchasing fish,” said local fisher Abdul Karim Baksh. “Even though the catch is fresh, people become afraid.”
Studies made after major oil spills have shown that economic losses often occur before contamination is scientifically confirmed, as fear alone can decrease the demand for seafood and disrupt local markets.
For fishing communities already burdened by fuel costs that include PKR 34,000 ($121) just to start an engine, such a situation is devastating.
It also adds yet another level to the constantly rising mountain of miseries in Gwadar, which is part of a region that is often described as resource-rich yet suffering from neglect and exploitation.
Marginalizing small fishers
Gwadar is Balochistan’s second most urbanized district after Quetta, and fishing is the lifeblood of the port city’s economy.
The coast supports 4,500 fishing vessels, ranging from large ones that travel in the deep waters to smaller wooden horri boats that operate close to the coast. The city’s annual fish production is estimated at more than 105,000 tons.
The industry supports far more than fishers: fish vendors, boat owners, mechanics, ice sellers, and processors all rely on the functioning marine ecosystem. Yet despite its critical importance, fishers complain of insufficient storage facilities, limited government support, and lack of insurance and compensation mechanisms capable of cushioning sudden economic losses.
In his 2026 book, Pasni: Sailing Through Time, Badil Baloch traces many of the fishing communities’ economic hardships to the colonial era ‘metha’ system, introduced by the British in 1929 across coastal areas of Gwadar, Pasni, Jiwani, and Ormara.
This system prevented fishers from setting the value of their catches, transferring that power instead to influential merchants and local seths (wealthy businessmen), a market structure that many fishers say remains largely unchanged today.
Another major issue is the absence of cold storage facilities, which forces fishers to immediately sell their catch to middlemen at whatever price is offered, undermining their bargaining power. When disasters like oil spills strike and fish become scarce, the price spikes. But without any catch to sell, they can’t benefit.
Meanwhile, illegal and unregulated (IUU) deep-sea trawling has inflicted lasting damage to the marine ecosystem. Deep-sea trawlers use harmful fine plastic mesh or small-holed nets locally known as gujja, which do not allow vulnerable species to escape. Such nets are prohibited by the Balochistan Fisheries Ordinance, 1971.
As much as 1,000 trawlers have been estimated to operate illegally in Balochistan’s waters. Under the 1971 law, the first 12 nautical miles are reserved for small boats and local launches that operate near the shore and use traditional fishing methods. Yet, local fishers say, deep-sea trawlers breach these protected waters, conducting operations within two to three nautical miles. The Gwadar Fisheries Department, despite having dedicated security, resources, and patrolling units, has long struggled to stop these violations.
Exacerbating the fishers’ woes is the port expansion under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. When the 19.5-kilometer Eastbay Expressway was built in 2017, it completely blocked local fishers from their traditional access routes to the sea. An underpass was eventually built following protests in 2018, but locals say that it didn’t really solve the access problem. Because they lost their traditional fishing grounds and could barely make a living, many small fishers were pushed into smuggling oil from the Iranian border just to survive.
Toxic gunk
Then Gwadar’s waters turned black, and small boat owners could not fish in their normal zone of work; unlike commercial deep-sea trawlers, they lacked the larger boats needed to fish deep waters.
Before the national media took notice of the massive crude oil spill, Gwadar’s fishers were already watching their livelihoods sink before their eyes.
“We thought it was temporary,” said Baksh, who has spent more than two decades in the sea. “But then more oil started emerging, and the locals became worried immediately.”
As the toxic spill lingered for days on end, fishers complained that authorities were of little help. One fisher said that no one was taking note of the damage to their nets, there was no compensation mechanism, and nobody was telling them when it would be safe to return to the sea.
For Abdul Sattar, a 31-year-old local boat captain, the spill could not have come at a worse time – after months of soaring diesel prices, triggered by tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.
The price hikes had strapped him with debt. With the oil spill, he wondered how he would be able to pay it off.
“The machinery is ruined, the nets are stained black, and the fish avoid the areas that smell like crude oil,” Sattar told Asia Democracy Chronicles (ADC) before the cleanup finally began in mid-June. “We are stuck in debt, borrowing money just to buy diesel for the next trip, praying that the sea will be clean again.”
His boat’s gear, contaminated by the spill, had been rendered completely ineffective. Said Sattar: “The tar instantly ruins the fishermen’s nets. If it gets stuck in the engine, the engine cannot be cleaned. You are forced to throw the expensive nets away. The fish can smell and taste the diesel, so they run away.”
His concerns are supported by science. Crude oil contains toxic substances, often called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, according to the U.S. National Academies of Sciences. These harmful compounds remain in the sediment, harm fish reproduction and growth, and enter marine food chains even after the oil is gone from the surface.
“My net costs roughly PKR 200,000 ($717), while every trip requires 120 liters of diesel,” Sattar said. “Just to start a trip costs nearly PKR 34,000 ($121). Sometimes we go out and bring back a catch worth only PKR 5,000 ($18) or 6,000 ($21). This doesn’t even cover the diesel cost. The sea is unpredictable; some days you lose everything.”
For many Gwadar fishers like him, the disaster underscored a deeper sense of marginalization.
“We need real monitoring,” said Sattar. “We receive no compensation when our nets get ruined by the oil patches. The toxic chemicals stay in the sediment. We need someone to raise our concerns because the local planning processes completely exclude the fishers.”
This exclusion has severe consequences. Communities that are left out are unlikely to receive adequate training in disaster preparedness, as well as little or no early-warning information. When crises strike, they are unable to advocate for protective measures and become dependent on institutions that are already struggling.
Scant resources
Indeed, the slow official action to the spill exposed longstanding weaknesses in Pakistan’s own response system along its remote coastline.
Given that the country’s National Marine Disaster Contingency Plan dispenses a framework for responding to marine contamination, much of the equipment, training, and spill-response resources have historically been centered around Karachi and Bin Qasim ports, Pakistan’s top two industrial ports in terms of trade.
Along the Makran coast, authorities have fewer dedicated resources available for rapid containment, making quick action harder when a spill occurs.
“For an intensive oil spill that occurs deep in the ocean floor, we use skimmers, boomers and oil-eating bacteria,” said Abdul Rahim before the official cleanup began. “This disparity leaves the remote 750-kilometer Balochistan coastline completely exposed and ill-equipped to detect, trace, or respond to cross-border marine disasters.”
He added, “It isn’t only Gwadar’s West Coast but Astola Island, just some kilometers away, that has also been affected. As it is a marine-protected area and home to corals, migratory birds, whales and dolphins, carrying out the clean-up drive is very difficult there … because we need to clean and then transport the crude oil patches to the city.”
Eventually, though, a cleanup at Astola was carried out, and Abdul Rahim has since told ADC that there is no longer any visible oil in Gwadar’s waters.
An official at the Gwadar Fisheries Department said, however: “People often think the problem ends when the oil has disappeared from the beach and that the shoreline looks clean. But ecological recovery can take much longer.”
The official, who spoke to ADC on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, noted that shallow coastal areas such as those found in and around Gwadar are specifically vulnerable since contaminants become trapped in areas where marine life feeds, breeds and finds shelter.
“We unfortunately don’t have any continuous real-time monitoring across much of the coast,” he said. “By the time teams arrive, the contamination has often already spread.”
